Argentine company could turn up the heat

THEATER REVIEW: "Tercer Cuerpo" at MCA Chicago ★ ★

October 04, 2013|Chris Jones

Most of the international performance work that arrives in Chicago is on what you might call the prestige level: the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Maly Theatre of St. Petersburg, the Market Theatre of Johannesburg. Stuff like that. So it's refreshing to the see the MCA's ever-interesting performance series bring to Chicago the first full North American staging of "Tercer Cuerpo," translated as "Third Wing," the work of a company from Buenos Aires called Timbre 4.

Claudio Tolcachir, the founder of this company and the director of this play, named his group after the buzzer on the door of his apartment, which is about as Chicago-style as you could get. In fact, this piece was, I believe, pretty much developed in that very apartment, which is what goes on here in Chicago, too.

Alas, the piece from Argentina is being exhibited not in one of those Chicago storefronts whose modus operandi Timbre 4 emulates — and where it surely would have been more comfortable — but in the MCA's large performance space. The Edlis Neeson Theater generally is one of the most desirable venues in town to focus on a show, but it's simply too big for this show, which features a storefront-style set and acting (the cast is Melisa Hermida, Daniela Pal, Jose Maria Marcos, Hernan Grinstein and Magdalena Grondona) just not scaled for this kind of space.

"Third Wing," which in its best moments puts one in mind of the much more polished and emotionally devastating work of the New York-based Elevator Repair Service, is an absurdist piece set in an ordinary gray-toned office. The five people who work there, sort of, seem to have been forgotten by their bosses. Rendered obsolete by technology (a worry for so many of us), they spend their time bickering among themselves, answering the phone, taking part in hopeless romantic couplings and, it seems, generally looking for meaning where there is none to be found.

It's not an easy piece to follow, especially once (not especially good) subtitles are added into the mix. Tolcachir has created scenes in different locales (such as a doctor's office) to show these lonely souls striving for action elsewhere, but it's mighty tough to track the narrative.

That's not the main problem, though. This is, clearly, a new piece, and there's a lack of specificity and energy to the whole thing, leading us into a constant low simmer when such a Kafkaesque work needs to hit more of a boil. The inappropriateness of the space plays a role there, but it's still disappointing not to see something more visceral from these actors. Even those whose senses are dulled by life's agonies occasionally cry out in defiance.

Hopefully Timbre 4 will be back, in a space that fits its mission and with a show more developed and packing more heat.